Sun, Mar 13, 2016

To Have and Have Not

75 Years of Film Noir, Part 4: Prime Noir of the 1940s

(1944) dir Howard Hawks w/Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Hoagy Carmichael [100 min; 35mm]
More a tale of wartime intrigue a la Casablanca and less of a noir per se (though Walter Brennan’s entreaty to be careful of dead bees could serve as a warning to many noir protagonists), TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT nonetheless shows signs of leaning towards the dark side with Bacall as a beautiful drifter and Bogie as an aloof tough guy.

“From moment to moment it is a cat and mouse game between them, though you never know for sure who is the cat and who is the mouse…” Becky Gilling writes about TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT for Brattle Film Notes. Read More →